Mad: A Story of Dust and Ashes

by George Manville Fenn

The Curate at Home.

The task of the Reverend Arthur Sterne was weary, and one that might have made him sigh had he known no other troubles. Work, work, work, of the most disheartening character for the most part; and it was only in rare instances that he could feel in his own heart that his labours had been of any avail. Here he would listen to a hypocritical tale of woe, there to a story of real sorrow; now his task would be to try and point out some foolish reckless piece of extravagance; then to call to account for folly and idleness. Everywhere there was the same display of live to-day, and let to-morrow take care of itself. Forethought and providence seemed to know no home in Bennett’s-rents and the neighbourhood, perhaps because hope had often been so long deferred that the sickened hearts believed in it no more. Dirt everywhere, drunkenness frequently, vice often, with their followings of sorrow, repentance, disease, and death. Years, however, had made him to be looked upon as a friend, and his step was always welcomed, while, effecting what good he could, he toiled patiently on; fearing no fever, dreading no epidemic, but ever ready, he visited the bedside of the stricken—the vilest or the most unfortunate—ready to join his prayers to theirs for pardon—to point out the long neglected road that should have been taken—to teach the ignorant the words they had never known, or perhaps forgotten years upon years before. His was a task that knew but little earthly recompense, save the knowledge of duty done; but many a parting soul blessed him with lips soon to be motionless for ever, or thanked him with those glazing eyes from which the wild despairing look had faded, as he knelt in intercession for one whose opportunity for better things had never come, but who, born into the misery and wretchedness of a great town, had passed in it the life now about to be given up at the stern call that knows no refusal.

It was a weary task amidst so poor and wretched a flock; but could the curate have been at rest, he would have been happy in the good he effected, and the simple confidence now placed in him by those he visited. Even Bill Jarker had of late taken to pulling off his fur-cap and picking it when they met; and there was no hypocrisy in the salutation, for it was wrung from him by the genuine respect he felt. But then the curate was not at rest, for he had now thoroughly awakened to the germs which had rooted themselves in his heart, growing more and more till his very life was interlaced with the strong fibres. Now, he would deliberately try to eradicate the growth, tearing and lacerating himself in his efforts to rid himself of the unbidden guest; but the progress he made was slow in comparison with the growth he fought against. Blindly, though, he would tell himself that he had conquered, that the last root was torn out, and the door of his heart closed against further entrance. And then, in the pride of his believed victory, he would tell himself of how he had been about to lavish riches upon one beneath him, and unworthy, when his heart would reply that love was a leveller, and laugh to scorn the subtle distinctions of caste; reminding him, too, that this maiden had grown up as it were beneath his eye, that he had watched her for years, while she was as well born, perhaps, as he. And then, in his heart, there would shoot forth a tiny green blade, then there was the opening leaf, and soon again the blossom; while roots spread here and there lacing and interlacing stronger and stronger than ever, as if he had been by his efforts merely preparing the soil for a richer growth of the ever-verdant clinging plant that he sought in vain to tear away.

So wearily on, day after day, passed the curate’s life, a struggle between the natural affection and self-imposed duty, while night after night in his sleepless hours he heaped up reproaches upon himself for work neglected, and the dreamy musings into which he was wont to fall. Self-deceiving, he had gone on taking more and more interest in the Hardon family, blinding himself to his real sentiments, until now that the veil had been so rudely snatched from his eyes he writhed hourly, maddened almost, that he should have allowed his peace to have been disturbed for what he fiercely told himself was worthless.

It was not a long walk from the Bennett’s-rents region to Surrey-street, where he had rooms in a gloomy wilderness of a house, which he shared with a solicitor, an accountant, and a company that seemed to be composed of a small secretary and a large heap of prospectuses. Here he would seek for the rest he could not find, anxious and worn, day after day, since his last visit to the Hardons, much to the discomposure of Aunt Fanny, who dwelt with him in the double capacity of housekeeper and companion.

A prim, pleasant old dame, proud of her great age, and of her bright silver hair, smoothed in bands beneath her quaint old widow’s cap; sitting or standing, ever with her arms crossed over her black corded-silk apron, while a mitten-covered hand clasped each elbow. A prim, pleasant-looking old dame, always dressed in lavender poplin, whose stiff plaits seemed to have been carved out of the solid, as she stood at the window watching for the coming of her boy. For “Arty” always had been, and doubtless always would be, a boy in her pleasant old eyes—eyes that spoke the truth of her tender old heart; though there was one point upon which Aunt Fanny would err, and that was her age. Unlike ladies of a certain time of life, she was proud of her years, and, doubtless from some haziness in her arithmetic, she was given to adding to them, so that more than once in her arguments respecting points of time, she somewhat upset her calculations.

“Why, aunt,” the curate would say, “you cannot be so old as you say by eight years.”

“Nonsense, my dear boy, how can you know anything about it? I’m eighty-two.”

“Then,” he would say loudly, “you must have been thirty when you were married.”

“Nonsense, child; how can you be so silly! And you need not shout so. I was twenty-two when your poor uncle led me to the altar.” And then she would fall to smoothing her black apron, and arranging the folds of her dress, with hands that trembled in an agitated manner, a tear standing in one of the still bright eyes, as the old recollections sprang up, when, ceasing the discussion, her nephew would tenderly kiss her hand, and sit affectionately gazing in her handsome old face. Indeed time had paid a certain respect to Aunt Fanny, so that she looked years younger than she really was, while all her faculties save one were bright as ever; for proud though she was of the fine stitching placed with her own needle round Arty’s shirt-fronts—stitching aided by no spectacles—and ignorant though she was of her failing, yet Aunt Fanny was terribly deaf.